


Old Fashioned Lemonade

by la_duanna



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Food, POV First Person, sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 22:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,106
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/667258
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/la_duanna/pseuds/la_duanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The flu, chicken soup, and homemade lemonade. Steve Rogers doesn't like missing dates.</p><p>Preview: So that's the story of how Captain America was huge-ing it up in my kitchen, talking me through making simple syrup while he rolled lemons on the counter. The man brought lemons and soup and cannot possibly be real but he is. Real. Here. With me.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Fashioned Lemonade

Of course I had just settled down into bed – piled high with pillows, the box of tissues and garbage can within arm's reach, a steaming mug of tea and short stack of toasted rye fighting for real estate on the nightstand with the alarm clock, the remote, and a paperback – when someone knocked at the door.

Hitching up the oversized pajama bottoms and tugging down the soft old vee neck, I stumbled for the front of the studio. Not that I was in any sort of mood for maintenance, but you had to take it when it came and I've been waiting a long time to have the shower handle fixed for real instead of ghetto fixed on her own.

I coughed into my shoulder and unbolted the door with my free hand. “Sorry I'm not dressed for company,” I said. The apartment manager would probably laugh at me in his sympathetic way and then offer to go to the supermarket for ginger ale when he was done working.

The manager wasn't at the door. Captain Fucking America was.

“I'd heard you were feeling poorly,” he smiled and who talks like that anyway besides him, “and Barton and Agent Romanoff suggested you might need some provisions.” The brown paper bag tucked into one arm was piled to the top with groceries and other, smaller, mysterious paper bags.

“I'm, uh, good, actually. Shuffled out to the convenience store and got some frozen juices and stuff.” It'd taken a double dose of Tylenol and a decongestant/antihistamine combo to get me that far, and I got back home feeling like I'd run a marathon. My bathrobe was draped over a laundry basket just out of reach but I was desperate to cover up so I stepped back and grabbed it. The First Avenger should not see me in a stained grey tee and Christmas pajamas. For the record, all my pajamas are Christmas pajamas. It's a family tradition.

He stepped forward, not all the way into my apartment but far enough that I couldn't close the door on him.

“Definitely don't want to get anybody else sick.” I vampire coughed into my sleeve for emphasis.

“Haven't had a cold in about ninety years.” His lips curved in that smile, the one that said can you believe this happened to me, the one that said his inner skinny kid from Brooklyn was having a wow moment. Or a golly gosh gee whiz or something. I knew that smile, knew how it felt to be somebody new on the outside but the same old insecure me on the inside.

“I need to rest.” I need to not be seen when my armor is down, when I'm slobbing around in my jim jams and honking my nose and groggy from fever and cough syrup. Plus, I do need to rest. It's not all the way a lie.

“We were going to have lunch, so I brought lunch to you. You do have to eat.” He lifted one of the smaller bags from the top of the grocery pile and the scent finally cut through a mile of snot to register in my nose. “Barton told me you like chicken and wild rice when you're sick.”

That rat bastard sold me out. Ask a man to bring you special soup one time when you have the flu and he uses it against you.

But I'm weak and the chicken and wild rice is my favorite. “I'm embarassed for a number of reasons, but against my better judgement I'm letting you in.”

“You can blame the fever for your poor decision,” he said drily and another half step forward let the door close behind him.

“I'm not going to apologize for the mess.” I tried to sound stubborn, or nonchalant, but it came out like an apology anyway.

“I'm not here to critique your housekeeping.”

“So why are you here?” Whoops that slipped out and do I blame the cold medicine or the fever again or the fact that I'm delirious and Captain America is in my apartment and it's a pigsty and I'm in my pajamas and I hope this strain of the flu is the kind that kills because I'm gonna die of embarassment anyway.

His back is to me – piling up some papers on the table to make space for the grocery bag – and I don't want to stare which is a lie. Of course I want to stare. I do, just a little, but the rush of fear, horror, shame, insecurity makes me feel even worse for staring than I usually do. Sixty, maybe seventy percent of the entire SHIELD agency has a ginormous crush on Captain America.

I'm not at all sure why he asked me of all people to lunch.

“We had a date. I don't like to miss important dates.” And wasn't that awesome of me to remind him about his life before the ice and the date he never made. I am so good at making things worse. He turned, finally, and smiled. A shy smile, a hopeful smile. “And you're sick and I wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“It's just the flu,” but I already lost. “It sucks, but I'll get over it.” He handed over a carton of soup and a plastic spoon.

“Sit. Eat. Let me just put these away.” Seeing how the table was taken up with Mamma America's favorite home remedies, I took my carton of soup back to bed and shut the hell up. My mouth was going to get me into trouble if I wasn't careful, so I'd fill it with the best most heavenly chicken and wild rice soup known to mankind. And try not to cringe too much as he opened cabinets and the fridge and basically got to look into my soul by way of my tiny kitchen.

“There's ice tea mix above the sink, or frozen juices if you need a drink.” There, that was a safe thing to say.

“Thanks.” Definitely not an enthusiastic thanks, but he opened the freezer door and studied the selections. “Used to like lemon ice when I was a kid, especially after an asthma attack. It was nice to just slow down and savor the sweet and tart.”

I couldn't stay still and let Captain America be all huge in my kitchen. It's my kitchen, my postage stamp of an apartment, and it was weird as hell having him here. The soup container sat snugly on top of my forgotten mug of tea and I bounced back out of bed. And by bounced, I mean tried not to groan too much at the all-over body aches.

“There's frozen lemonade.” I reached past him and grabbed a cylinder, then plopped the drink mix into his hand. “Make that if you want.”

He frowny face pouted at the label. “There's no actual lemon in this. Lemon flavored drink,” he read off the label.

“Don't judge. It's easy.”

He put the can back into the freezer and full on smiled at me. “We're going to do homemade.” I just blinked at him for a moment. “It's easy,” he teased, “and tastes way better.”

So that's the story of how Captain America was huge-ing it up in my kitchen, talking me through making simple syrup while he rolled lemons on the counter. The man brought lemons and soup and cannot possibly be real but he is. Real. Here. With me.

We were practically back to back – not a lot of free space in the kitchen or anywhere else in my studio. He kept turning to check on my progress or check on me, and I nearly dropped the spoon when he brushed a bit of hair back from my forehead. The back of his hand lingered for a moment, as if checking my temperature. Old fashioned all the way.

“We have these things called thermometers now,” I said because sarcasm was easier than letting myself get too moony-eyed.

“Works just as well.” He turned me a little, enough to press his cheek against my forehead. I went still, not wanting to move or break the moment or do anything that would possibly make him stop touching me. Total deer in headlights. “Keep stirring,” he smiled down at me, pulling back a little but still standing way too close, kitchen size notwithstanding.

Even when he turned back to the counter, slicing lemons in half and covering the scent of sugar and soup with citrus, he was still too close for me to do anything but stir sugar water and be aware of him.

“The trick is to hold the lemon up when you squeeze.” A nudge on my shoulder so I would turn and look. He was holding the half fruit with the cut side up towards his palm. Carefully, he squeezed it over an empty glass. “It keeps more of the seeds out.”

A joke about a second career as a shaved ice vendor died before it made it to my mouth. I gave myself permission to just watch him work, big strong hands juicing lemons, don't think about licking the pulp off his fingers please brain. It was several flattened lemon halves before my traitorous brain finally shut up with the sarcasm and fear and just let me be in the moment.

He dumped the remains of a jug of iced tea and washed the blue plastic pitcher – and dear Lord Captain America is doing my dishes – but no, it's just a guy, just Steve Rogers, he's a real person with real feelings and not just a symbol, an extremely hot symbol. Still, he was doing my dishes and that should have felt weird but it actually wasn't.

The newly cleaned pitcher got filled with ice. “Crushed is better but cubes will work,” he said, emptying most of both ice cube trays. “Bring the simple syrup over.” His hand on mine and mine on the handle of the pot, we poured the sugar water into the jug, the ice crackling under the warm liquid. He added the lemon juice and filled the pitcher the rest of the way with tap water.

“Now what?” I was holding the saucepan, still. With a dishtowel to protect his palm – did he really need it or was it force of habit – he took pan and spoon to the sink to wash.

“Curl up in bed,” he suggested. “I'll bring you a glass.”

There was a little moment of skipped heartbeats, of my brain going zero to sixty and imagining him in bed with me naked and sweaty and – but I knew he didn't mean it like that. Probably. Maybe. A girl could hope in the little corners of her mind that he did, though. I was almost definitely bright red as I crossed the room and meekly settled myself into bed. It was easier to close my eyes, to not look at him even though my imagination (with some help from my ears) vividly painted him washing the dishes, wiping the counter, pouring two glasses.

You're not good enough for him. He doesn't really like you. Why would he? There isn't anything likable about you. Heart pounding. Concentrating on breathing helped. Four heartbeats in, four heartbeats out. The same old, tired refrain.

The bed dipped as he sat lightly on the edge. He said my name, softly, as if afraid I'd fallen asleep.

I opened my eyes.

“Not sleepy?”

“A little bit.” It would make it easy, give him an excuse.

He handed over a glass with an expression I couldn't decipher. A little bit that shy smile that made me want to give him anything, but a little bit of something else, too. I took a sip.

“Better than the frozen stuff?”

Maybe it was hope, and fear. Maybe it was his own ghosts, or maybe it was mine.

I nodded. “Definitely.”

“If you need to sleep, I can-”

“Go? You don't have to stick around.” Easy exit. Another sip of old fashioned lemonade, time to collect myself. “Thanks for the groceries.”

“Stay. I can stay while you sleep.” His eyes dropped to the glass in his hands. “If you want.”

I nodded, but he was carefully not looking at me. “Steve. Yes. I do want.”

He smiled, really smiled, open and safe and maybe surprised a little. “Okay.” Impossibly long eyelashes flutter, but this time his eyes dropped to my mouth.

There was no way I was going to kiss Captain America with a runny nose, chapped lips, and bed head. But I was going to kiss Steve Rogers that way.


End file.
